


Even Ice Melts in Hell

by avislightwing



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: In Character, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV First Person, Sharing a Bed, because I care a ridiculous amount about Storytelling and Languages, but Az still taught Feyre how to fly because I love that detail, if you look you can see some Illyrian worldbuilding, in which Cassian's wings are still recovering, slightly canon-divergent AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 02:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11348340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: Cassian has loved Azriel for as long as he can remember, but he's resigned himself to never being loved back. Little does he know that Azriel feels the same about him. And being stuck in a tiny room at an inn in the middle of the Steppes can be the perfect time for secrets to come out...Based on cardinalrachelieu's Cutthroat Fanfiction: ACOTAR Edition Generator. Prompt was:CHARACTERS: azriel and cassian; TROPE: bed sharing; TWIST: first person past pov





	Even Ice Melts in Hell

I was absolutely, one-hundred-percent going to hell. I was going to die, and then I was going to descend into the depths of hell and die again. And maybe a few more times for good measure. Or maybe Azriel would bring me back to life just to kill me again. I wouldn’t put it past him.

But holy shit.

“What do you mean, there’s only one room?” Az was at his worst. We’d been in the Steppes for five days, because Az insisted that total immersion was the best way for me to get flying again. He’d taught Feyre, he argued, he could teach me. It would be no problem. Of course, that was before we got trapped by snowstorm for two days, nearly froze to death, finally managed to get to a town (through the freezing rain the snow had now become), only to discover that the single inn only had one room free. One room with one bed.

And Az, hair dripping ice-cold water into his eyes, wings twitching like they wanted to flare to their full expanse, scarred hands clenching and unclenching as he stared down the clerk, was _not_ happy.

The poor faerie behind the rough-hewn desk cowered. “I’m very sorry, lord,” they squeaked. “All the other rooms are already taken.”

“Azriel.” I almost put my hand on his arm, but then pulled it back at the last moment. “It’s fine. I can just –”

“ _No_ , Cass,” he snapped. “I pushed you to your limits for three days, and then you spent two days hiding in that godsforsaken hole, freezing your ass off. The least you can get is a bed to yourself.”

I was going to hell the hard way. My face heated, and I prayed to the Mother that Az couldn’t tell. “You want to kick someone else out of one, then? Because that’s the only way this is going to happen.”

Az’s hands clenched once more, and he took a deep breath, letting it out through his nose. “Fine,” he said tightly. “We’ll take it.”

The faerie nodded several times. “Free of charge,” they assured us. “There’s a bathing room on the second floor and a kitchen on the first. The room is – is on the third.” They swallowed, and I saw their throat bob. I couldn’t blame them for being nervous. Az angry was a sight to see. “I apologize once more, lords. If I’d known you’d be needing rooms, I would’ve set aside our largest, our best –”

Az cut him off with an impatient motion of his hand. The faerie cringed again, whether from the movement or the blue siphon on the back of Az’s hand, I didn’t know. “I know.” He paused a moment, to gather himself, I thought. “I know,” he repeated, in a softer tone – his comforting tone, the one he used to put people at ease, to make them think he was vulnerable and be vulnerable in return. Completely at odds with the harsh command his voice had been mere moments before.

I wondered which he used in bed.

Holy _shit_ , I was going to burn in hell. I might already be burning.

By the time I had gotten ahold of myself, the faerie was relaxed and even smiling. It always astonished me how Az did it – how he could conceal his fury, icy as the rain we had flown through to get here, and make everyone around him believe it was only a façade. That it was the mask, and his true self was soft, and nurturing, and caring, when it was the other way around.

I had never been deceived. I had never once looked at Az when he wore what I thought of as his diplomacy mask and mistaken that for his true face.

I knew that face perhaps better than I knew my own. Knew everything from the hazel eyes three shades lighter than mine, to the white scar behind his left ear, to the slight bump of his nose in line with his cheekbones where Rhys had once broken it. I knew how his thin lips twisted in anger, or softened in humor. I could trace that face with my fingertips in the dark.

I hadn’t, and I never would. But I could.

Az turned back to me, only a slight tightness around his mouth betraying his still-sharp anger. “Well,” he said shortly. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a room.”

******

I could almost feel the flames of hell licking at my heels.

It was worse than either of us could’ve imagined.

“Sure you wouldn’t prefer another night in the Steppes?” Az asked flatly.

“Nope,” I said cheerfully, stepping past him into the room, careful not to even brush against him. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I did. I _might_ spontaneously combust, and that would be embarrassing for all concerned. “C’mon, Azriel, it’s plenty big.”

“I’m sleeping on the floor.”

I turned around, my wings flaring instinctively. I barely stopped myself from wincing; the exercise plus the cold had really not done anything for my wings. Even if they were in perfect shape, they would be sore and raw, as I’m sure Az’s were. “Don’t be an idiot,” I said sharply. “You’ve been out there for just as long as I have, and you need a place to sleep just as much.”

“But –”

“You sleep on the floor, I’ll sleep on it as well,” I threatened. “And as there seems to be even less floor space than bed space, I’ll probably have to sleep on top of you. You don’t want that, do you?”

Our eyes met for what I thought was a split second too long to be casual. Then Az smiled reluctantly. “Fine. You win. Get changed, and I’ll grab us some food.” He hesitated. “And see if I can get some salve for our wings,” he added. “I’m sure yours are even worse shape than mine are.”

I nodded. “Sure. I’ll start a fire, too – looks like there’s some wood stacked in the corner.”

Az glanced back at me from the door, a bare hint of a smile still on his face, before it closed behind him.

_Hell is empty and all the devils are here_.

At least when I got down there, I’d be on my own.

 

 Az knocked on the door before he entered. “You decent?”

_Absolutely fucking not_. “Yeah, come in.”

Az cautiously pushed the door open, balancing two covered plates on one hand, a bottle of wine under his arm. “This was all they had. The cook claimed it was venison. I’m not convinced.”

“We’ve eaten worse,” I said easily. “Remember the squirrels?”

That hint of a smile touched his mouth again. _Fuck_ , he was beautiful when he was happy. I wished I could tell him that. I wished I could tell him that when he gave me that little smile, I wanted to kiss his smiling mouth until it forgot how to frown. “How could I forget? I caught all of them and you ate all of them.”

“Inaccurate,” I protested. “I only ate two more than you did.”

“Two more than me was five.” Az sat down on the bed carefully – the only way he ever did anything – and passed me one of the plates. “And that, Cassian, is a ridiculous number of squirrels for one person to eat.”

“Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was squirrel too.” I scooped some of the stew onto a piece of warm flatbread and shoveled it into my mouth. “Not bad,” I said, mouth full. “Hot. The meat is definitely meat.”

Azriel started to uncover his own plate, but I shook my head, moving it out of his reach. “Get out of those wet clothes first,” I instructed. “Before you catch your death of cold.”

“Must you always be such a mother hen?” Azriel sighed deeply. “Fine. Don’t look.”

I tried not to squirm – tried to concentrate on shoveling the hot, tasteless mystery meat into my mouth. My hair may have still been soaked, the fire may have provided only a semblance of warmth to the room, but I was feeling hot enough to be burning in hell.

I had never seen Azriel naked.

Even when we were children, he was studiously private. The rest of the Illyrians in the war-camps were shameless about their bodies – among other things. But Azriel always made a point of bathing alone, and never stripped down to more than a bare torso. There were rumors, even back then:  that he was like the virgin moon-god, and he had the power to change those who spied on him to animals. A young Illyrian disappeared one day, and the next night, we saw a snow-white wolf howling at the moon. Never saw one like it before or since.

So I had never seen him naked, and apparently, I wasn’t going to now. I’d seen him shirtless plenty of times, though – in training, mostly.

I had his spine tattoos memorized. _Truth. Loyalty. Justice._

_Love._

Holy _shit_ , I should not be thinking about that when in this tiny, freezing room with a mostly-naked Az. The entire space was taken up by hulking Illyrian muscles and soaked leather and wings.

I risked a glance to my left. Az now had loose cotton pants on, though his chest was bare, and his wings – his _wings_ –

There were rumors about them, too. Ridiculous ones, mostly, about wingspans and certain correlations to other body parts. I had no idea if they were true. Az wasn’t one to brag about his lovers, or his prowess in bed. Just another thing about his life that he kept private. But Cauldron boil me, I didn’t care. Not really.

What I cared about was the way the soft firelight caught the veined membrane and shone through it like sunlight through the trees in autumn. I couldn’t breathe for a moment, I was so overcome by his wings and his tattoos and the flickering shadows that highlighted the planes of his face, the living ones that played in his hair, drying each strand as gently as a lover.

Az turned to me, and I hastily turned away until I could hide the aching look I was sure was plastered on my face. “I found the salve,” he said, showing me a small tin.

I reached for it, but he shook his head. “You won’t be able to reach.”

It took me a moment to understand his meaning. I could feel the back of my neck heating, but I did my best to banish it. “You first,” I said briskly, snatching the tin. “You haven’t eaten yet.”

Az’s eyes seemed to search mine for a moment, then he shrugged, retrieving his squirrel stew. He also grabbed the bottle of wine, pulled the cork out with his teeth, and took a generous swig before passing it to me. “They didn’t have any glasses,” he said by way of explanation. “Not clean ones, in any event.”

So I drank directly from the bottle as well, ignoring the thought of how Azriel’s lips had touched it only a moment before. I set it down on the chest of drawers with a noisy clunk and unscrewed the lid to the tin of salve. “You, eat,” I told him. “I’ll take care of your wings.”

For a moment, it seemed like Az might protest. I could count the number of times he’d let others touch his wings on one hand. And yet, for me… He simply nodded and turned to his food, and let his wings stretch out behind him.

The trick was not to think about what I was doing.

I dipped my fingers into the pine-smelling salve and, after a moment of hesitation, touched them to Azriel’s wings.

They snapped in against his back immediately, almost knocking me over.

“Az.”

His shoulders hunched. “Sorry.” But his wings didn’t move.

I touched his back above his wings, and his skin was as cold as ice. Colder. He’d always been this way – a male of ice and sharpness and the cold disregard of the moon. I could see it in every sharp line of his body, from the honed talon at the apex of his wing that seemed to pierce the heavy silence in the room, to the rough swirls of the scars on his hands, rippling as they clenched and unclenched as they had when he was talking to the faerie downstairs.

“I don’t have to.”

Az let out a shuddering breath. “It was me who insisted we needed it,” he said tightly. “Go on.”

His wings still didn’t unfold, so I carefully hooked a finger in the talon of one and tugged it open. Then I spread the salve on a raw, cracked spot, and this time, his wings didn’t snap in.

But they trembled. _He_ trembled.

I stopped. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” Azriel’s voice was tight. Closed-off. “Just do it.”

Steadily, gently, I rubbed the salve into his wings. I pretended it was nothing to me, and he pretended it was nothing to him (or maybe it truly was nothing), and I was wrong about going to hell, because I was already there.

_It’s not nothing, Az._

“Done.” I screwed the top back on the tin and set it beside him. “How do they feel?”

“Fine. Thanks, Cassian.” He placed his empty dish on the chest of drawers. “Your turn. Shirt off.”

I obediently pulled my cotton shirt over my head as Az pulled his on, concealing his tattoos. I also grabbed the bottle of wine again, drinking deeply, though I suspected it would take more than the watered-down alcohol the cook had provided to get me through this. “Go ahead,” I said, voice transparently brazen.

I nearly ignited at the first touch of Az’s fingers.

I wasn’t as protective of my wings as Az was. Never had been. Others had touched them, both in and out of bed. But had Az? I couldn’t remember.

I knew he was thinking of Hybern, because I could feel the rough pads of his fingers trace one of the raised scars from where the healers knit me back together. Thinking of when those wings spread between him and death.

As he uncertainly reached the outer edges of my wings – the parts that were still ragged – I let out a long, painful breath. _I wouldn’t have done it for just anyone,_ I thought, trying not to pay attention to the way his fingers rubbed the salve in with slow, deliberate circles, and instead thinking about what I wouldn’t sacrifice for the male here with me.

Nothing. That was the answer. There was nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice for him. My life. My dignity. My control.

My wings.

_I would let my wings be shredded a thousand times over for you_.

I had been wrong:  this was a worse hell than when it was the other way around. Because I had to pretend like I felt nothing at the touch of Az’s hands, at the care he was showing me. I had to pretend I loved him like a brother.

I had to pretend every stroke of his fingers over the membrane of my wings wasn’t shooting a hot line of blood and fire directly into my heart – and between my legs.

“Your hair is wet.”

Az’s hands left me, and I carefully folded my wings to my back. “Longer than yours. And we don’t all have magic that can dry it for us.” I glanced back at him with a smirk. “Some of us can just cleave mountains with a single blow and all that shit. Not very useful for a camping trip.”

“Nonsense.” Az tossed the empty tin onto the chest of drawers with the plates. “You aren’t useless. Look at the marvelous fire you made.”

“Ah, yes. Three twigs. Quite the accomplishment.”

Az’s lips twitched in response. _Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me._ “I think there might be one more in there, buried beneath the others.”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Az?”

But he must have heard something in my voice that betrayed me, because his features shuttered. “It’s late. We should get some sleep.”

I swallowed and dropped my eyes from his face. “Yeah. Of course.” I pulled my shirt over my head, almost tearing it on my wings in my hurry. “Night.”

“Good night.”

I heard the soft whisper of Az’s shadows across the wooden floor, and then the candles illuminating the room went out, all at once.

Carefully, I laid down on the bed, making sure I was as far to one side as I could be, practically pressed against the wall, wings tucked in as tight as I could manage. This bed may have been made for Illyrians, but not for two of them. I felt the mattress dip as Azriel settled down himself.

Something brushed my wing, and I twitched, then froze. I glance back over my shoulder, and realized that it was just Azriel trying to fit himself into the too-small bed without touching me. He slept with his wings curled around himself like a cocoon. He always made it look so comfortable and cozy I’d tried it myself a time or two, but found myself overheating within a few minutes. Meanwhile, he’d sleep like that the whole night and wake with his skin still ice-cold. I had to resist the impulse to put a hand against his back, between his wings, to see if his heart still beat, or if it – like the rest of him – was frozen solid:  uncaring, unmoved.

I turned back to the wall, scolding myself for the thought. I knew perfectly well that Azriel cared – about me, about the rest of the Inner Circle. He just didn’t react. Didn’t… feel, perhaps. I had thought, for my first few decades of knowing him, that it was a defense; that he kept himself behind a wall of ice so that he would never again be hurt as he had been in his childhood.

But now, after nearly five centuries, I knew that to be false. Azriel’s icy exterior was one of the truest things about him, a shield that functioned precisely because everyone thought it false. He was capable of incredible things because of it, capable of committing atrocities that would make me vomit, that even Rhys would turn away from. It was that ice in his heart that allowed him to be the spymaster of the Night Court, and perhaps what had taught him the language of his shadows. It was what made him who he was.

And I loved him all the more for it.

For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to love Azriel openly. To call him my lover – even my husband, if he could stomach such a term, which I doubted. No, our love (like mine had already been for so long) would be confined to shadows, hinted at only in shared smiles and brief touches, whispered words before missions and shared nights afterwards. Loving Az would not be the tender, warm happiness Feyre and Rhys shared. Loving Az was like loving a storm. I knew that if I stayed out in it, I would be soaked to the bone, swept away. And yet I persisted.

I had loved Azriel longer than I had known how to love.

“Cassian?” Az cleared his throat. “Cass?”

For a moment, I thought I’d dreamed it – that I’d fallen into a restless slumber, caught between the flames of hell and the icy room around us – but I hadn’t. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

Az shifted, and his wings unfolded slightly. I felt something brush over my cheek, and went very, very still. “For helping with my wings. I…”

I waited.

And then I heard it. Felt it.

Az’s shadows wisped to me, brushing my cheeks, my forehead, smoothing over my hair, then curled around my ears. _Truth,_ they whispered. _Loyalty. Justice_.

_Say it,_ I pleaded with them, my eyes closing.

_Love._

I lifted a hand off the mattress, and the shadows wound down it. When they got to my hand, then stroked down each of my fingers in turn. Then they ghosted back to their master.

That’s when I felt his hand.

_Holy shit._

I didn’t dare breathe. Here, in this filthy, freezing inn, Az’s fingers brushed the back of my neck, cold as a snowfall. They slid into my hair, unbound from its usual bun and tangled into knots from five days in the wilderness.

“Az,” I said, the word nearly a gasp. “You don’t have to –”

“Shh.” I felt the mattress shift, and then dip directly behind me. He was so close I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I folded my wings against my back even more tightly than before, allowing him more room, but he inched closer in response, so that when I relaxed my wings slightly, they brushed his cotton shirt. “Please don’t – don’t talk.”

I nodded mutely, eyes still closed.

Az’s hand left my hair and slid down to my waist. My shirt was so thin I could feel the whorls and ridges of his scars through the fabric. It clenched there, and I could feel him trembling, like he had when I touched his wings.

“I want to tell you a story,” Az said, and it was neither the harsh, commanding voice he used as spymaster, nor the comfort of his shadowsinger’s lilt. He spoke to me in our mother tongue, the one we’d learned as children, as if the rough cadence and rolled consonants of the common language were too foreign for his words. “Will you listen?”

I nodded again, and as I did so, I felt Az bend his head towards me. His icy nose pressed to my neck, and his dry hair mixed with mine, still damp. His hand slid off my waist, allowing his arm to drape over it. He was quiet for so long I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep.

“It’s a story,” he said, still in Illyrian, “about two boys.”

My heart started beating faster.

“Between the Mother Mountain and the Father Sky,” Az whispered to me, beginning the story as they would when we were children, “there lived two boys. They were both bastards – outcasts. The estranged. The rejected.” His breath cooled my neck. “One was alone. He’d learned to fight for everything, even the clothes on his back. The other had been in the company of those who hated him. He’d learned to hide instead.

“And then, long ago and yesterday, an angel appeared, and the boys thought her their salvation.” My stomach churned at his use of the word _angel_. In our language, it meant _light, breath, one who came from the gods_. I knew, instinctively, that he meant Mor. Who else could he mean? “They both longed for her as they longed for the sky, loved her as they loved their mountains. They knew she could not choose both. They were friends, almost brothers. How could she choose?”

I wanted to pull away, to shove Az, to shout that it wasn’t like that. But I couldn’t – not with him so close. And I knew the story was about to get worse.

“And then one day she chose.”

My eyes clenched shut as tightly as they could.

“The angel was a prisoner,” Az whispered. “Chained to the ground, wings clipped. She needed one of the boys to free her from her chains. She chose the fighter, for she saw his spirit and in it recognized her own. And thus she was freed, but at great cost.” Az took a deep breath, and I heard it shudder. “For there was another the hidden one loved, longed for, and he did not dare speak his truth.”

_Truth,_ the shadows said.

I didn’t know whether this was hell or heaven.

“But the second boy resolved never to let this be known,” Az said, and his voice was almost a whimper. “He had his angel; he had his lord; he had his brother. He would do what was required of him. He knew what he was, what he had learned in the shadows:  a weapon. He would be loyal to those who wielded him.”

_Loyalty,_ they said, and I thought I could taste the word on my tongue, taste his shadows.

“So the boy allowed ice to enter his heart, and he did great things. Terrible things, but great. And he never let himself get near the other boy, for the other boy was made of fire, and he did not want to melt. He did not know what would happen to him if he melted. Perhaps there would be nothing left. Nothing but shadows.

This was how he spent his years. He killed, and tortured, and meted out justice where he saw fit.”

_Justice_.

I knew how this story would end.

“But –” Az’s voice broke and he had to stop, compose himself. “He kept on loving the other boy, and it was useless, because loving him was like loving a forest fire. It would burn the flesh from his bones, melt him into nothingness.”

_Love,_ the shadows said.

“And thus it was,” Azriel said quietly, “and thus it would be, now and always.” Ending it like we always ended stories.

I felt something warm on my neck, and I realized Az was crying.

“No,” I said.

It took him a moment to respond. “What?”

“Not always,” I said. “And not now.”

Then I rolled over, opened my eyes, and kissed Az’s forehead, and then his mouth.

It was quiet for a long moment in the room, as I tangled my legs with Az’s and let him cry into my chest. I had the brief, unmoored thought that when I’d imagined how a night sharing a bed with Azriel could go, none of my imagined scenarios had been a thing like this. They had either involved studiously not touching Az all night and nothing happening, or a hell of a lot of sex.

I still wouldn’t say no to the sex.

“I need –” Az’s voice was ragged from crying “– time, Cass. I don’t know how to do this.” He swallowed. “I don’t know if I know how to _feel_. You deserve better than that.”

“But I want you,” I said, quietly but fiercely. “You think I don’t know what you are? Who you are?”

I closed my eyes and put my fingertips on his face.

“I know you, Az,” I said, running them lightly over his angled brows, his long lashes, his broken nose, his thin lips. “I know you’re made of ice, including your heart. And I don’t mind that, as long as you don’t mind that I’m made of fire.”

Slowly, Az took my hand, still on his face, and kissed my fingers. “I may never thaw,” he whispered.

“I don’t mind that either.”

Az ran his thumb over my palm, then interlaced our fingers and let them rest on the mattress between us. “It won’t be soft, or kind. I am not.”

“I know.”

“Then perhaps,” he whispered, “the story isn’t at its end.”

“I would like that,” I told him, and smiled.

I spent the rest of the night in Azriel’s arms, and he in mine.

I wasn’t in hell. I was in heaven.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on tumblr where I'm birdiethebibliophile


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